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Belief
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A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.
-Franz Kafka
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Education
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I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.
-Franz Kafka
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Experience
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It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.
-Franz Kafka
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Fear
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My fear... is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
-Franz Kafka
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Goals
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From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
-Franz Kafka
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Happiness
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In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.
-Franz Kafka
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Humanity
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You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.
-Franz Kafka, The Collected Aphorisms, no. 103 (Oct. 1917-Feb. 1918)
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Identity
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I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.
-Franz Kafka
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Imagination
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You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
-Franz Kafka
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Judging, Judgment
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Human judgment of human actions is true and void , that is to say, first true and then void.... The judgment of the word is true, the judgment in itself is void.... Only he who is a party can really judge, but as a party he cannot judge. Hence it follows that there is no possibility of judgment in the world, only a glimmer of it.
-Franz Kafka
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My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
-Franz Kafka
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Kisses
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May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.
-Franz Kafka
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Life
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Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
-Franz Kafka
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Patience
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All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.
-Franz Kafka
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Poetry
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In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
-Franz Kafka
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Rejection
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Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.
-Franz Kafka
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Revolution
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Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
-Franz Kafka
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Understanding
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A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.
-Franz Kafka
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Words
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For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks be hind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one' s every word.
-Franz Kafka
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Youth
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Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
-Franz Kafka
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Books by and about Franz Kafka